l
c. Negative Politeness Strategy
Negative politeness is oriented towards a hearer’s negative face since this strategy is also used to minimize the face threat to as a redressive action. It leads
to deference, apologizing, indirectness, and formality in language use. This strategy suggest distance by accentuating the hearer’s right to territorial claims
and freedom from imposition. This strategy can be called as ‘formal politeness’. d.
Off-record stategy This strategy is used when the risk to face is estimated very high. Going of
record means realizing the act in indirect way with more than one unambigously attribute inttention, for example by using metaphor and irony, hints, tautologies,
and etc to reduce the imposition because of the speaker does the FTA. e.
Say nothing Do not do the FTA If the risk is considered too great, the speaker may decide not to say
anything at all. It does not mean that the speaker does not do anything however he or she can do non-verbal action.
G. Discourse Acts
1. The Definition of An Act
According to Sinclair and Coulthard 1975 in Tsui 1994: 9, “an act is a unit in discourse”. It is characterized according to its function in the discourse.
According to this view, the discourse value of an item depends on what linguistic items have preceded it, what are expected to follow, and what do follow. In other
words, the acts are characterized in terms of how they are related to each other in
li
the discourse rather than the kind of function they are independently used to perform.
Based on that discussion it is important to know the structure of adjacency pair since it will explain the importance of discourse context to determine what
act is performed by the participants in the interaction. According to Tsui 1994: 11, “adjacency pair is an organizational pattern recurrent in conversation”. It is
formed of two adjacent utterances, which are produced by different speakers, and related to each other in such a way shaping a pair type, for example: ‘question-
answer’, ‘greeting-greeting’, ‘offer-acceptancerefusal’. Furthermore, Schegloff and Sacks in Tsui 1994: 11 states that the basic operation rule of adjacency pair
operation is: Given the recognizable production of a first pair part, on its first possible
completion its speaker should stop and a next speaker should start and produce a second pair part from the pair type of which the first is
recognizably a member. 1973: 296 According to them, “utterances are related to form pair types so that a
particular first pair part sets up the expectation of a particular second pair part” in Tsui, 1994: 11.
2. A Taxonomy of Discourse Acts
Tsui 1994: 52 presents taxonomy of discourse acts identified on the criteria of structural location and prospected response. They are primary classes
of acts and subclasses. a.
Primary classes of acts: it is identified on the basis of where they occur in the exchange structure. Applying the criterion of structural location, it can be
identified three primary classes of acts, which are head acts of the three
lii
moves of an exchange. They are initiating acts; responding acts; and follow- up acts which are optionally recursive.
b. Subclasses of acts: within each of the primary classes, subclasses are
identified on the basis of the response prospected. Further subclasses are identified only if the responses prospected are different enough to warrant the
setting up of separate subclasses.
3. Characterization of Discourse Acts
